Update the version numbers in all files. (e.g. grep the trunk for the last release version). You should get at least to following files:

/README.txt

/dist-README.txt

/compiler/src/main/java/org/apache/etch/compiler/Version.java

/doc/libs/global.ent

/etch.properties

Release notes: /RELEASE_NOTES.txt

The release notes do contain important information about the release. Please read through the existing content carefully, add new notes or remove obsolete remarks.
At the end of the file the release notes exported from JIRA are attached. Those release notes can be copied from the Roadmap section of JIRA for the respective release.

Create the release artifacts

Apache Etch is currently shipped both as a source package (mandatory according to ASF Policy!) and as a binary package for different platforms.
Therefore you need the toolchains for Linux as well as Windows at hand in order to create all the release artifacts.

Make sure all the stable bindings are building, the unit tests do succeed and all the examples are working.